The Trail Leads Him

Today is a great day for Julie Smith fans!! Check out these great deals for only $0.99, or even better…one of her most popular mysteries is free today. From Fantasy and Science Fiction to Mystery Thrillers, find out why Julie Smith fans are fans for life!!

EVER WONDER WHY THE WORLD DIDN’T END IN 2012? YOU CAN THANK REENO DIMOND, TEENAGE BURGLAR

Budding-psychic Reeno is the most accomplished teenage burglar in California, but one tiny screw-up and poof!—she’s sentenced to Bad Girl School. And that isn’t even her worst problem. Her sister Haley’s dying of an illness no one can diagnose, and now Reeno can’t even help. But wait, maybe she can! The school psychics have found each other and formed their own club. With the help of the Ozone Rangers, Reeno finds out Haley’s disease is the result of an ancient Mayan curse. And A.B., the group’s cuddly but sinister non-faculty adviser, claims he knows how to break it. All Reeno has to do is time-travel to an ancient Mayan city and steal a little item A.B. needs to save the world. Since she’s an ace thief, he has complete confidence she can execute the task before the outraged Mayans can chop off her head and use it for a soccer ball.

The SECOND book in Edgar-winning author Julie Smith’s Rebecca Schwartz series.

A tasty treat of a San Francisco mystery—a crisp, tangy story you’re sure to get a rise out of. To you, it’s just a frozen lump of dough; but to some, it’s life and death…

Especially to handsome Peter Martinelli, who wants to auction off the fabled sourdough starter from his family’s famous bakery. But who’d buy a frozen hunk of flour and water? Only, it turns out, every bakery in San Francisco, a national food conglomerate, and an upstart ringer with a mysterious backer.

Rebecca noshes her way through the case in hilariously unorthodox style, tasting some great bread along the way, but also uncovering so many ancient jealousies, long-simmering feuds, and seething resentments that she barely escapes death by doughball.

NOTE: THIS STORY IS COMPLETELY REALITY-BASED! A SAN FRANCISCO BAKERY MADE PAGE ONE NEWS BY FREEZING THEIR STARTER –ONLY WITHOUT THE BLOODSHED.

At 12:45, Bob Tosi stretched, looked at his watch, and said he had a lunch date. “I expect the rest of you do, too,” he said. “Why don’t we leave together and set another date for the auction? I’m sure Mr. Martinelli must have gotten tied up or he’d have been here by now.”

“May as well,” said Thompson, rising and straightening his tie.

Tony rose without a word.

Only Sally seemed reluctant. She continued to sit a bit longer, looking as if she were trying to think of something to say. After a moment, she got up and left with the others.

Chris was dialing Peter’s number before they were out the door. She put down the receiver, sighing. “No answer.”

“Look,” I said, “I’ll go out and get sandwiches.” She nodded.

“I’ll go with you,” said Rob. It was obvious Chris needed to be alone.

We came back with three pastramis on rye and three Cokes. Rob ate all of his, I managed half of mine, and Chris stared into space while we ate. Every now and then she’d pick up half her sandwich and stare at it instead of the horizon, but she never got as far as biting into it.

She called Peter’s again. No answer. “I’m going over there.”

“Chris, you can’t—”

“Rebecca, this is no time to be cool.”

Rob looked baffled, but I had to give Chris credit. She’d put her finger on the very thing I was thinking—when your boyfriend stands you up, you shouldn’t go spying on him or he might get the idea you like him. Maybe I’d never grow up.

“I guess not,” I said. “I think we should all go.”

She didn’t protest.

Peter didn’t answer his doorbell, and the manager didn’t answer hers. But just as we were about to give up, a woman who recognized Chris came in from walking her dog and let us in. We climbed the two flights of smelly stairs to Peter’s apartment and knocked. He didn’t answer. Chris tried the door—and jumped back when it opened.

Rob pushed it wide enough to see what police call “signs of a struggle.” A lamp was knocked over, and one of Peter’s charcoal drawings hung askew, as if someone had fallen against the wall. The furniture was like that, too—sort of pushed around and out of place. Peter was sitting on the couch, staring at us. He was wearing a white terrycloth robe with a number of bullet holes in it. Peter’s blood had run out of his chest and

Things were going lousy for ex-reporter Paul Mcdonald: No money, no girl friend, no bright new career as a mystery novelist … and then along came PI Jack Birnbaum with an offer. He’d detect, and Paul would write the client reports. It wasn’t much, but it would keep Spot the cat in Kitty Queen tidbits. And then this:

“That stuff’ll kill you.”

“What? Your coffee?” Jack was just doctoring his second cup.

“No. All that sweetener. You’re poisoning yourself.”

“We’ve all gotta go sometime.”

Jack went right about then. His eyes rolled back and he let go of the cup. Coffee sloshed all over my rug. His big body fell forward in the chair.

A day that begins with a body in your living room really ought to get better, but next comes burglary and after that, assault-by-cop. And Paul’s got a feeling that’s just the beginning. There must have been something someone didn’t want him to know in one of those client reports. But what?

These were the facts: I was thirty-eight. I’d spent fifteen years on one major metropolitan daily or another. I’d written six unpublished detective novels. Unpublished in spite of my name.

John D. MacDonald did it daily. Ross Macdonald did it deeper. Gregory Mcdonald did it with dash.

A story he can sell, if he can catch the murderer before the murderer catches him.

Birnbaum’s last report concerned a kidnapped child, so Paul begins there. The trail leads him to the laboratory of a Nobel laureate geneticist, and then to City Hall, where an extremely nasty surprise awaits. But there’s an upside—lovely witness Sardis Kincannon. Nothing like falling in love while you’re running for your life!

Sure, New Orleans is known for corruption, but suddenly the good guys get a break—an honest police chief. And then someone guns him down. When a terrifying organization called The Jury takes out the cop-killer, Detective Skip Langdon’s on the case. But no one cares! After all, the guy was a cop-killer.

Skip cares really a lot—because she suspects The Jury’s the brainchild of her old nemesis, self-described preacher Errol Jacomine. And because other lives are at stake—those of Jacomine’s granddaughter Lovelace and his younger son Isaac. Eager to add Lovelace to his maniacal fold, Jacomine has Lovelace kidnapped, but she escapes and flees to the bohemian home of her Uncle Isaac, an artist and true eccentric known as The White Monk. Isaac’s taken a vow of silence, but uncle and niece manage to communicate and form a bond that could save both their lives. And Langdon comes up with a plan so clever even the FBI can’t shout her down.

Excerpt:

When she visited the first time, Aunt Alice had talked candidly about a relative she thought was dangerous, though everyone else in the family had decided to find him amusing—Earl Jackson, aka Errol Jacomine.

Skip came and sat down. She was presented with a writing pad—Aunt Alice could talk to you, but you had to write to her.

“Did you get my letter?”

Skip nodded. She wrote, “Thank you. That was sweet of you.”

Skip’s encounter with Jacomine was national news. Aunt Alice had written to say she knew Skip was just doing her job even though Earl Jackson was a blood relative, and she, for one, not only applauded, she was real sorry the bastard got away.

“It’s good to see you again, honey. What can I do for you this time?”

“I know it’s stupid to ask,” Skip wrote, “but has Jacomine been in touch with anyone in the family?”

“Now, honey, you know I would have let you know.”

“Just thought I’d ask,” she wrote, and pulled out a list of the things she’d already done to trace Jacomine: looked for his wife, looked for his son, badgered the Christian Community. “Can you think of anything else I could do?”

Aunt Alice’s index finger, under a layer of ladylike pink nail polish, flicked at the list. “Didn’t even know he’d married again.”

Skip’s stomach flipped over. Blood pounded in her ears: this was something. She wrote, “Again? You mean this wasn’t his first marriage?”

“Oh, lordy, lordy. How would you know? Yes, ma’am, he was married, and thereby hangs a tale. Now where’d I put that thing?” She got up and left the room. Skip wanted to chase her, grabbing at the flapping folds of her purple windsuit.

But there was nothing to do but wait, drumming her fingers, swinging her leg, all but biting her nails.